Casual Connect July 20, 2010: Oberon goes blazing, Arkadium partners with GSN, and I meet some of the Big Fish Babes

Casual Connect opened up today with tons of great sessions. Unfortunately, I was in meetings all day so I only attended one (more on that tomorrow).

Still, I am able to sum up for you all that you missed in Sunny Seattle!

Oberon launches Blaze, a new e-commerce platform for social and casual game distribution. I’m meeting with Oberon on Thursday and will give you more information then.

GSN and Arkadium are partnering together to create a skill-based version of its popular Facebook app, Mahjongg Dimensions. Facebook games are monetized through virtual items and from what I know (and I am not the total expert), this is the first time that a popular game (with over 1 million MAU’s) will be monetized as a skill-based game. If this works, this could be a huge revenue model for social game companies (skill based Texas Hold’em, anyone?)

Rich Roberts, formally of PlayFirst and one of the nicest guys I have ever had the pleasure of negotiating a deal with in the past, has become CEO of Slingo.

Greenopolis, a subsidiary of Waste Management, has launched the trashiest social game ever, but all for a good cause. Oceanopolis is a social game that will teach users about conversation and recyclilng.

Finally, the highlight of my day is that I met 2 of the Big Fish Babes at the show. They are apparently also Gamezebo users and I await their email to befriend them on the big GZ. We took a picture together, which I’ll post, once they send to me.